Rainham businesses fear for future as Medway Council increases parking fees

Parking in Longley Road car park has gone up 60p an hour, the Council says it's had to due to financial pressures.

Transcript

00:00 Reign and businesses are fearful for their future as they say the council's decision to increase

00:05 parking charges in the precinct has caused a severe drop in footfall. Medway council says

00:12 it had to raise fees to balance the books but local traders are now concerned what this will

00:17 mean for their sales as they say they have fewer customers. The councillors around here have just

00:23 increased ours up with no thought for the sole traders or the fact that other people here are in

00:30 a crisis, cost of living crisis, so why would you possibly increase things like this at the moment

00:36 now? Since it's been increased the car park prices we've seen the amount of people lowering every

00:43 week and then we're just worrying about for the future as well. After a tough few years for Medway's

00:50 economy local businesses have said we should be encouraging people to shop locally. They could

00:56 either decrease the charge, they could take out or give us one free day's parking or a specific

01:06 time frame during the day because obviously the idea is you want to encourage people to come to

01:10 the precinct or high street as opposed to deterring them. Parking at Longley Road car park has gone up

01:16 by 60p an hour. It would have cost me only £1.70 to park here for two hours in Raynham car park

01:23 but now that the new charges have been introduced it now costs £2.30 to park here for the same time.

01:30 I really don't understand why we're having this increase in parking charges. There's no improvement

01:39 in parking or these parking areas. I think the parking charge would have some knock-on effect

01:45 on Raynham. They should have risen them by say maybe 20 or 30p. I tell you what we're all pensioners

01:52 so we would rather it was something reasonable. However a portfolio holder on Medway council

02:00 Lauren Edwards said decisions such as this are important to balance the books while dealing with

02:06 financial pressures and increased parking charges will bring Raynham in line with the rest of the

02:12 county. Councillor Edwards said the council is committed to supporting Medway small businesses.

02:18 As local councils face financial pressures they say difficult decisions have to be taken

02:24 but for the local businesses in Raynham they hope residents will continue to shop locally

02:31 so their doors can stay open. Henry Luck for KMTV in Raynham.